Monday, January 16, 2006

And the prize goes to...

People have had fun trying to guess whether our kid is a boy or a girl. So far we're split at 4 people being absolutely sure it's a boy, and 3 people being convinced it's a girl. Today's 20 week plus ultrasound scan is quite detailed and usually conclusive as to the gender.

First, the sonographer and I saw and measured the head, mouth, arms, fingers, heart rate, checked that the umbilical cord was doing its job etc ... S/He was waving at us, sucking her/his thumb, bending like beckham and generally showing off for the camera.

Second, we moved lower and saw the stomach. At this point, I told the sonographer that my husband and I elected not to know the gender in advance, and started to turn away from the screen. This is because the next part of the check entails measuring the length of the femur (thigh bone) and it is usually at this point that you find out the sex.

Finally...

Murphy's law prevails!

Our friend decides it's bedtime and curls up and turns his/her back to the camera. The hand-held scanner is pretty good at measuring bones at lots of angles, but there is one blind spot where it can't do so accurately, and it was exactly there that our kid decided to put his/her femurs.

No amount of prodding and encouragement could get her/him to wake up. I got off the couch and tried to jump up and down and walk around to try to get him/ her to turn around because I REALLY didn't want to have to make an appointment to come back another day.

Some acrobatics later...

The kid didn't bother waking up but kinda turned around enough for us to make some kind of measurement, but kept her knees prudishly/cheekily (depends on your viewpoint) crossed at her chin. The sonographer (a nice old man) remarked that it must be a girl because she's so shy!

Henceforth the Bump-known-as-Murphy will sometimes be referenced at varying intervals as both "he" and "she", but neither should be taken to be conclusive. Whatever the gender our baby sure has a sense of comic timing...

3 comments:

Michael Low said...

Well, at least one thing is for sure, Murphy/Murphette certainly has your sense of humour! Besides, half the fun is in the anticipation of whether to go with the pink or blue colour theme...

Anonymous said...

i think it's a girl....

S* said...

BTW .. My mother thinks that the baby will be a girl too.

For a variety of reasons, including the fact that my skin and hair looks and feels pretty good.

Also because it appears that the lottery of having a boy or girl is actually not 50-50 as previously imagined... The human race is actually slightly slanted towards having daughters instead of sons. This is because of the long mamalian gestation period and because we normally only have one child at a time. This means that since one male can fertilize the eggs of multiple females, the optimum gender ratio is actually slanted to getting more females...